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Watermarking Solutions: A Content Owner’s Shield from Digital Piracy

Piracy has been a growing problem since the days when street vendors illegally sold low quality VHS tapes and DVDs. The barely watchable videos may have been just a small headache for studios then, but pirates have continued to evolve with the digital era. The open seas of the internet have become a treacherous place to navigate through for the entertainment industry.

Even though picture quality is usually reduced when it’s illegally copied, 4K has created another problem for content owners, because, even if it’s degraded, it can still be good quality. This increase in quality results in even more demand to view illegally shared content. In 2016 alone, 191 billion visits were made to piracy websites. This combination of high quality videos and evolved methods to digitally steal and share content has pushed filmmakers and distributors to consider content protection at every point of their chain.

As part of a new forensic watermarking solution that Edgeware launched with technology partner ContentArmor at IBC2017, Edgeware commissioned Frost and Sullivan to research the 21st century requirements needed to protect content from theft – from creation to delivery. The new whitepaper highlights the need for watermarking and how it can strengthen content rights management for a content producer in any part of the world.

The paper outlines an eight-point checklist to help content owners to decide if they should watermark their content. It assesses aspects such as the quality of content produced, distribution methods, history of theft, the type of content streamed and more.